Category Archives: Someone’s In The Kitchen With

Actually, to be more precise, I’ve gone crabbing…with Craig’s family up in the San Juan islands. (See this post from 2008 for reference.) My plan is to drink lots of wine, eat lots of crab, read lots of books, and to stay as far away from the internet as humanly possible. Look for me back here on Monday August 20th. At that point, I may actually have a copy of my cookbook in my hands! Big exciting things are happening this fall and I can’t wait to tell you all about them. As of this moment, though, consider this post my Out-Of-Office AutoReply.

When Craig got his L.A. job offer and I knew that we’d be moving out here, I took great comfort in the fact that Zach Brooks, creator of the legendary N.Y.C. food blog Midtown Lunch, made a similar move a year prior. Which is why, when I thought of starting up my web series “Someone’s In The Kitchen With” again here in L.A. (check out my new L.A. kitchen in the background!) I knew precisely who my first guest should be. Join us as, then, as we chat about Zach’s blog, his childhood, his life in radio, how he thought up the idea of a site that’d tell office workers where to eat a good lunch in midtown Manhattan and how he’s expanded his empire to include downtown New York, Philadelphia and, of course, L.A. Thanks, Zach, for being my first L.A. guest! Your final interview bit about L.A. makes me excited to be living and eating here.

If you haven’t heard of Penny De Los Santos, you clearly don’t follow many food folks on Twitter. The woman is a superstar to the nth degree. Beloved by food bloggers everywhere for her photography (she works regularly for Saveur and National Geographic) and for the stirring lectures she gives at food conferences, the woman is unstoppable. So how lucky am I that she came to my kitchen (when I still had a kitchen) to talk about her career and the nitty gritty of food photography? Learn how to take great pictures of food (essential tip: it’s all about the light) and scratch your head as I make a weird Harry Potter analogy. Thanks, Penny, for dropping by!

Why doesn’t New York have any female chefs with four-star restaurants? What are the obstacles that stand in the way of women who want to make it in the restaurant industry? Joining me today on “Someone’s In The Kitchen With” are two guests who can speak authoritatively on the subject: one of New York’s best chefs (regardless of gender), Chef Anita Lo from Annisa, and Wall Street Journal reporter Charlotte Druckman who’s currently writing a book about women chefs called “Skirt Steak.” It’s a fascinating conversation and one that I hope you’ll continue in the comments.

It’s not every day that one of New York City’s anonymous food critics comes to your apartment and unmasks herself on your web show to all the world. But that’s precisely what happened when Village Voice food critic Lauren Shockey stopped by to talk about her brand new book, “Four Kitchens,” a book that covers her time cooking at wd-50 in New York and restaurants in Hanoi, Tel Aviv and Paris. Find out all about how this 27 year-old became a food critic at a major paper, the challenges of restaurant criticism, the food that she cooked at wd-50 (“Campari Tofu with Smoked Eel”), her ultimate conclusions about molecular gastronomy, how to properly hold a knife (and mince chives), what it’s like being a woman in the brigade system in France and Lauren’s favorite off-the-beaten-path New York City restaurants. P.S. I’m pretty sure that I have a cowlick in this episode.

Yesterday saw the premiere of the new Sundance show “Ludo Bites America.” It stars French chef Ludo Lefebvre and his wife Krissy Lefebvre who, together, have taken the Los Angeles restaurant scene by storm; creating pop-up events that sell out so quickly you have a better shot of getting J.K. Rowling to write you another Harry Potter book than you do scoring a table there. The show tracks the Lefebvres as they create pop-up events all around the country. The first episode (which you can watch here on Hulu) is an entertaining mix of culinary tourism and high-stakes cooking drama. Ludo and Krissy stopped by my kitchen yesterday to chat about the show, the reality of reality TV, the virtues of a pop-up vs. a food truck vs. a restaurant and whether or not I could bribe my way into winning a table at the next LudoBites when I move to L.A.

Today’s episode of “Someone’s In The Kitchen With” takes us to Porsena in the East Village where Chef Sara Jenkins (who also owns the amazingly popular Porchetta) talks to me about the challenges of opening a new restaurant, her childhood in Italy (and Lebanon), the benefits of dried pasta vs. fresh pasta, and how she fed porchetta sandwiches to 300 troops in Afghanistan. (That story is not to be missed; make sure to stay for that). Thanks so much to Sara for taking the time to do this! I enjoyed talking to her so much, I could’ve stayed for many more minutes.

Amanda Hesser has lived in my kitchen for as long as I’ve been cooking. Well, in cookbook form: her “Cooking For Mr. Latte” (which I refer to as a cookbook even though it’s really a memoir (with recipes) about her courtship with New Yorker writer Tad Friend) is a constant go-to resource for me. The almond cake in it? It’s one of my all-time favorite recipes. So it was a big deal to have her and her Food52 co-creator and collaborator Merrill Stubbs here in my kitchen today for this latest installment of “Someone’s In The Kitchen With.” We chat about The New York Times Cookbook (Merrill assisted Amanda in writing it), the creation of Food52, and–later on in the conversation–what it’s like being women in a male dominated internet start-up world. Plus, I served them this coffee cake and Amanda already Tweeted that she’s coming back for more tomorrow. I cooked for a cookbook hero and she wants to come back for more (that’s a good feeling).